<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Remaking Family by PrairieDawn</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28318692">Remaking Family</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn'>PrairieDawn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Extended Meatballverse [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christmas, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Meatballverse AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:35:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28318692</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sidney Freedman has been staying in Hannibal with the Potters.  He and Sherman spend Christmas morning in Quincy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sidney Freedman &amp; Sherman Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Extended Meatballverse [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1100532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Remaking Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story occurs within the Meatballverse, hence the cryptic references to noncanonical events.</p><p>Until last year, B'nai Sholom in Quincy, Illinois was one of the oldest synagogues in the United States. It closed in 2019 because the congregation could not afford the upkeep.</p><p>Special thanks to justalittlegreen for the seed idea, brainstorming, and beta and sensitivity reading.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A white Christmas was lovely to look at, but for his purposes, Sherman Potter was glad it hadn’t snowed for a few days. It would make the drive up to Quincy in the old Plymouth less of a hazard.</p><p>He padded about the kitchen in his house shoes, putting water for coffee on the stove and sweet rolls on the table. The grandkids would be barreling down the stairs any time now to look through their stockings, likely with Mildred and their mothers at their heels, but the footsteps he was listening for were slower, more hesitant, as though even after nearly two months their guest wasn’t sure of the durability of his welcome.</p><p>The fourth step from the bottom of the stairs creaked. A couple of moments later Sidney rounded the corner into the kitchen, his curls still morning wild. He dropped heavily into a chair at the table. Sherman wordlessly slid a roll on a small plate in front of him, then poured water into the coffee pot with the grounds and set it, the strainer, and a pitcher of milk on the table.</p><p>They read their respective sections of the paper while the coffee steeped, Potter reading the local news while Sidney frowned down at the comics. Potter collected a couple of mugs and strained strong black coffee into them, adding a generous portion of milk to each mug before placing one in front of Sidney and sliding back into his seat. “Best drink up and get ready to go,” he said, noticing the younger man dawdling over his breakfast.</p><p>“I’m not taking you from your family on Christmas morning, Sherman,” Sidney said patiently.</p><p>“The hell you aren’t. We went to the candlelight service last night and the kids will have their stockings to entertain them until we get back for Christmas turkey.”</p><p>“You should be with your family on Christmas.”</p><p>“I am, Sidney.” He took a long swig of coffee. “Besides, truth be told I could use a few hours away from this madhouse. Eight children, none of ‘em a day over ten.” The sounds of movement and chatter from the floor above them punctuated his words and he shook his head. “There’s a pancake breakfast at the VFW. I thought I’d stop by and shoot the breeze with the old soldiers.”</p><p>Sidney sagged in his chair. “I might just be too tired today. You think of that?”</p><p>“Horse hockey,” he said, but he kept his voice quiet. “Going out to B’nai Sholom every Saturday has been the best thing you’ve done for yourself since you got here. You need those people in your life and they need you. So I don’t want to hear any more about it.”</p><p>Sidney stared into his coffee.</p><p>Sherman finished his own roll, checked the time, and gathered both of their coats from the rack by the front door. He cleared the empty plate in front of Sidney one-handed, rinsed it, and turned back to lay the coat pointedly on the table. Sidney stood and put it on with an almost mechanical slowness and followed him out the door.</p><p>They drove in silence. There would be time enough for Christmas carols on the radio on their way home, and he was sure there would be singing at the VFW, some of it even on key. The sky was crisply blue against the thin blanket of snow lining either side of the road. Even on such a bright, perfect Christmas morning, Sherman couldn’t keep his thoughts from turning to the horror and wonder of the past year. The nightmares were no longer coming nightly, though they had by no means left him, and he still rolled the events of April and May through his mind when he didn’t have something else to occupy it. Was there anything he could have done differently to save just one more city? Just one more life? </p><p>They pulled into Quincy, a small city grown bigger overnight with families displaced from the outskirts of where Chicago once had been. The tent cities hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks—there were enough suddenly idle military men to put up whole neighborhoods of tidy ranch houses before the school year had properly gotten underway. B’nai Sholom was downtown, an impressive edifice nearly a hundred years old. They pulled up near the door. “I’ll see you at eleven,” Sherman told Sidney, who nodded his thanks. He closed the car door behind him, pulling a yarmulke out of his pocket and pinning it to his hair before heading toward the building. A few other men approached him at the entry, clasping his hands and slapping him on the back. Sherman pulled away as soon as he knew Sidney wasn’t alone and made his way to the VFW, though he had to park a couple of blocks away and walk up. A lot of veterans had been made in the last decade—and a fair number of them didn’t have family to go home to for Christmas.</p><p>The walk up to the little storefront was bracing and did his stiff legs a favor after the drive up from Hannibal. He could hear carolers a block away singing “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” in harmony. The young fellas, veterans of Korea alone—or Korea plus the Five Days’ War—took pride in serving the remaining WWI vets, and in turn, they would be available ears and shoulders for the youngsters who hadn’t yet lived a lifetime with the things they’d seen and done.</p><p>The place clearly hadn’t changed much since before World War II. Among the faded and smoke-stained posters papering the walls, there was a shiny color poster proclaiming that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as the Federation folks called it, was treatable and not to be ashamed of, but otherwise, it could as easily have been 1946 as 1951.</p><p>“General!” A group of three young fellows waved, though they knew better than to salute out of uniform.</p><p>He shook his head, smiling at them. “Sherman’s fine here. I ain’t going back into service. I am as retired as they come.”</p><p>“Aren’t we all?” the lanky blonde in the middle said a little ruefully. </p><p>Sherman knew bait when he heard it and he chose to leave it alone. The Army had discharged all its draftees in August, but even before then, they had been reassigned to search and rescue and later into cleanup and construction, a change that a lot of the younger guys deeply resented. He’d managed to keep his own role in the whole affair quiet and intended it to stay that way. Even if it meant listening to young fools lamenting the fact that meddlesome aliens had made war a physical impossibility.</p><p>He let another young fellow lead him to a seat with the other WWI vets. The kid swung away on crutches, his pant leg knotted below a stump. Old Louie, who was a good twenty years his senior and a colonel himself in the first World War, sat across from him. “Thought you’d be home with the wife and all those young’uns this morning.”</p><p>“What, and miss all this?” he gestured to the men, some half of them in uniform, scattered about the tinsel covered hall.</p><p>Lou grunted. “You’re lucky you’ve got family. Ought to be with them while you can.”</p><p>“Just because you married the Army, Lou.” A tall plate of pancakes appeared in front of each of them, followed shortly after by pitchers of butter pecan syrup and Mildred’s strawberry jam. Potter gave in to the treasonous urge to pass up the jam for the syrup, but only because he knew there were a dozen more jars waiting for him at home. “Lucky doesn’t begin to describe it.”</p><p>“How’s that Jew friend of yours?” Lou said not unkindly, though Potter winced at the phrasing.</p><p>“Sidney? As well as can be expected, I suppose.”</p><p>“Criminal the way the UN’s took over the government and made peace with those Klingon animals after what they did to us,” Lou grunted into his pancakes. </p><p>The old colonel was fishing again. He was a racist old fool, that much had been clear since he met the man, but he was a lonely old fool and he’d latched on to Sherman from his first visit to Quincy. There was something more than provocation behind his digs and had been since the first time Sherman had defended the Federation representatives in Geneva. “Eat your pancakes, old man,” Sherman said by way of dismissal.</p><p>Old Lou chewed thoughtfully with his remaining teeth. He’d lost most of the teeth on the left side to a German rifle butt, a story he never tired of telling. “What did you do to get that promotion anyhow,” Lou asked, not for the first time. Sherman wasn’t sure if persistence or dementia kept him asking.</p><p>“Just my job,” Sherman said as he had on the other occasions Lou had asked. Earl and Phin climbed over the bench seats, pancake plates already in hand, to sit at their table. Earl was full of stories about French girls, most of them likely false, and Phin hardly spoke at all. He’d never seen them apart in the weeks he’d been coming to the VFW while Sidney went to shul. Earl set Phin’s pancakes in front of him and cut them into neat squares, then handed him the syrup, setting the knife down on the other side, out of Phin’s reach. Phin’s hand trembled slightly with the syrup container.</p><p>Lou glared acid at the two men and hauled himself to his feet to look for better company. Earl and Phin were Hawkeye and BJ’s age, more or less, though they wore corporal’s uniforms rather than captain’s bars, and those dated to nineteen forty-five. “Did you get the job?” Sherman asked.</p><p>Earl nodded. “We’re headed to Gary in two weeks.” Phin bumped the backs of their hands together. Earl met his slightly lopsided smile with a broader one of his own. “We’re going to share an apartment to save money and because Phin sometimes needs looking after.”</p><p>“Like you don’t,” Phin teased back, then tucked into his stack of pancakes.</p><p>Pierce and Winchester were both hip-deep in sifting through the medical advancements made available to them, but there were too many people waiting for medical miracles, and it would likely be years before someone like Phin made the top of a list that started with survivors of the Five Days’ War and even then prioritized children, who could benefit the most from new treatments. The two of them seemed to get along all right as they were. Given the way they looked at each other, Phin’s injury might be providing necessary cover. Sherman had taken care not to ask or imply.</p><p>The carolers stomped their way into the hall, accompanied by a gust of wind from the open door, singing, “Here Comes Santa Claus” with gusto. Sherman joined in along with everyone else, and for a moment was reminded of Christmases spent everywhere from Germany to Korea.</p><p>A few carols later Sherman wrapped himself back in his hat and coat, made sure to find Earl and Phin to get their new address in Indiana, and started on the short walk back to the Plymouth. Evergreen boughs and bright red ribbon adorned the lights lining the streets and he could imagine that things were, at last, getting back to normal, or at least moving forward into the new normal in which the lights in the sky weren’t all stars. He took his time driving back to B’nai Sholom, parked in the back and waited for Sidney. </p><p>Sidney lingered by the door, trading waves and handshakes then started for the car nearly staggering under a giant lumpy package wrapped in brown paper. As usual after shul, his steps were longer, quicker, and lighter, the smile on his face less forced. He slid into the seat beside Sherman and settled the package onto his lap. He chuckled into his hand. “I have been judged by the league of grandmothers and found worthy. They’re already sizing me up as husband material.”</p><p>Sherman opened his mouth to tell Sidney he’d be a catch for anyone there, but stopped himself just in time. Sidney watched his mouth open and close. “It’s all right, Colonel, we’ve got traditions to give each other time.”</p><p>“So does that mean you’re staying?”</p><p>“Thinking about it. I could start a practice in Quincy. I think I’d miss the big city life.” He tapped the back of his head a couple of times on the seatback. “But the city I miss is gone.”</p><p>Sherman let Sidney’s words hang in the air for a few miles until the psychiatrist reached out to turn on the radio. Perry Como sang “Winter Wonderland” and Sidney sang along in his reedy tenor. Sherman added his warm baritone, finding a harmony line to fit with Como and Sidney’s melody.</p><p>Sherman pulled into the spot his kids had left for him. The little bit of snow had been shoveled and salted off the steps in their absence. Sherman opened the door for the heavily laden Sidney. They were both immediately mobbed with children jumping up and down and pulling on their coats. “Hold your horses!” he told the lot of them.</p><p>Sidney handed a parcel to Mildred, who took it off to the kitchen, then bent to pull wrapped gifts out of the package to arrange around the tree with the ones already there. Mildred bustled back in to scold the grandchildren. “Go on now, we’re opening gifts after dinner, don’t be greedy.”</p><p>Sherman’s daughters filled the kitchen with chatter while the smell of Christmas dinner cooking filled the house. His son presided over the living room with his younger girl’s husband, guarding the Christmas tree from the hordes of children, not least the pair of toddlers who had taken up gnawing on the ornaments as a hobby. “You didn’t have to buy gifts,” he chided gently.</p><p>“I didn’t. I mentioned you had family coming for Christmas last week and this morning the grandmothers descended upon me.”</p><p>Sherman chuckled. “Sounds like they’ve adopted us both.”</p><p>“It’s a habit. A few thousand years of loss after loss, you start collecting family anywhere you can find it.”</p><p>“Like you did with us.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know. Hawkeye and Trapper took me in long before I considered myself one of the gang.”</p><p>“Sure,” Sherman allowed. “But by the time I showed up, they were all yours, Sidney. Every last one.”</p><p>Sidney swallowed, his eyes bright in the late morning sun, then raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, Sherman.”</p><p>Sherman raised his back but was interrupted by a grandchild plowing into his shins before he had a chance to reply. The two tumbled into each other, only their war honed reflexes keeping their glasses upright.</p><p>“Mary Jo!” Sherman said, capturing the little girl and falling the rest of the way onto the couch next to Sidney. </p><p>“Merry Kissmas!” she said, planting sticky, peppermint-scented kisses on both of their cheeks and squirming off to find other relatives to assault.</p><p>“Merry Kissmas, Sidney,” Sherman chuckled and looked in his glass. “Didn’t spill a drop.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>